


Initiation Into This Life

by lar_laughs



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Budapest, Explanations, Female Clint Barton, First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 09:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lar_laughs/pseuds/lar_laughs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Or: 5 times Clint told the truth and one time she didn't)</p>
<p>Clint Barton has the Black Widow in the cross-hairs of her bow but stays her impulse as she realizes that this woman has seen things, in this first meeting, that not even the people who know her best have ever realized.  <i>I was told you were one thing, yet I see you are completely another.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Initiation Into This Life

**Author's Note:**

> Without the help and insight of my friend and beta, **hufflepuffsneak** , I don't know that I would have had the courage to write this story. It's one thing to say, "Oooh! I like that idea so much," and quite another to find the words to put it down on paper.

Clint Barton hasn’t always been Clint Barton. Once upon a time, her name was Ruth and she had a mother and a father who loved her and an older brother that was only horrible when he was around his friends. Then came the horror of the accident and the weeks when she and Barney were trickled through the system until they finally fell out of it altogether, overlooked and frightened.

It was Barney’s idea to change their names. “I’m not going back to anywhere like that last home they had us in. I’d rather make our own way than deal with that place.”

“But I like my name.”

He’d bent down in front of her but she’d shied away, thinking of the times when her daddy had gotten down on her level only to slap her across the face for being too much of a baby. Barney didn’t like it when she cowered and this time he’d put a gentle hand on her arm. “You’ll always be my Baby Ruth but it’s going to be dangerous without a mother and a father to protect us. We have to protect each other. But also, you have to protect yourself. A boy won’t cry all the time. A boy will hit back, twice as hard, if need be. A boy will be strong and not get frightened.”

It was a good speech, cutting right to the heart of what Ruth was dealing with at the moment. That it was completely false had never entered her thinking because it was Barney talking and Barney, even at the ripe old age of eight, was always right.

After hacking off her hair and dressing in some cast-offs they found, Ruth became Clint as fully as a five-year old could. There is strong evidence in her memories that the change of character did save her from a lot of heartache, especially in those formative pre-teen years when she met some strong women who had successfully gotten through the same life she had as female to the outside viewer. Befriending them was good for her soul.

Then life took another turn and she was no longer just a passive participant but an active shaper of who she was going to be. It became less about being either a boy or a girl and more about being a person who was going to survive and make something of themselves. Her identity was suddenly in the fact that she had started training with the bow and was a natural at it. Time and constant training honed her natural skill into something almost supernatural. She never missed a target, even those that should have been impossible.

Choosing what was right and what was wrong shaped her teenage years. It wasn’t a matter of what was right and what was easy because it was all easy. What it boiled down to was what she could be involved with and still be able to fall asleep at night. Unfortunately, the not sleeping was a part of the “do good” scenario. Barney slept like a baby and helped embezzle millions. Clint decided to help other people and couldn’t sleep a wink as she struggled with the realization that she couldn’t save everyone. The key was that she wanted to try and that led to some choices that suddenly had her in direct opposition to everyone she considered family.

“You don’t want to do this.”

“You don’t know me,” she’d sneered at the agent in the dark suit and the dark sunglasses. Even in the shadowed building, she had him in her sights and could kill him with just the simple release of breath. The arrow would fly straight and true. It would be simple. It would allow her to sleep at night. She could follow after her brother and flee the scene of the crime. She could be his Baby Ruth once again.

What she chose instead was to help all those people that had previously plagued at her mind. Coulson gave her that opportunity and, like the smart person she was, she took it. Strangely enough, there was no forms to fill out where she needed to make a choice between Male and Female. No one demanded to know what sex she was. It wasn’t a matter of _oh, don’t you clean up nicely_ because she was so deep into her cover of being male that everyone assumed that she was and no one bothered to check. Years of training had stopped the flinch every time someone used the male pronouns or called her _son_.

It was years later when, down the shaft of an arrow, she discovered the first person ever to look at her and question what she saw. The confusion in her target’s bright-with-pain eyes wasn’t because she was only seconds away from death. “Funny, I didn’t have you pegged as playing a part. I was told you were one thing, yet I see you are completely another.”

It threw Clint into complete confusion as she realized what the woman was saying. “I don’t understand,” she stammered to cover over the long silence that was magnifying her disorientation.

This would have been the opportune time to run away but the woman had stood her ground, intent on an answer. It was as if she cared how Clint might answer her question.

“Some people,” the woman said, and Clint suddenly felt as if she was back under the largest of the circus tents, being given careful instruction on how to draw back the tiny bow she’d first been handed as a child, “can play a part so well that it is nearly impossible to see the person underneath. I say nearly because a trained eye will always catch the actor underneath the disguise. But then there are those that become the disguise so thoroughly that even they don’t know what is real and what is the role.”

Clint’s hands wanted to shake but through a great strength of will, she kept the bow in place, unmoving. “I’m not an actor.” If the words were heated, it was because she was angry at herself for nearly showing a weakness to such a dangerous enemy.

Strands of the woman’s red hair were flung across her face as the gentle breeze gave way to something stronger. “Then how should I address you? What pronoun should I use?” she asked, her voice holding the barest hint of a demand. Even still, there was power in those questions that belied Natasha’s place at the other end of a lightly-held arrow.

As Clint gave in to that power and answered back with her own growled, “You can address me as the person who is finally going to see you pay for the deeds you’ve done,” it felt like the wrong thing to say. Yes, her end goal was to see the Black Widow pay for the crimes that she carried out with such reckless abandon and no apparent pattern, but this was suddenly more about two people who saw the artifice as a veneer and not the substance of things. If Clint shot her now, she might never know what it was to be understood.

That didn’t mean she was going to open up her heart and soul to the enemy. It just meant she had some second thoughts about killing so quickly.

“I’ve met others like you. It is not always the easiest road to take. And it can be... confusing.”

And with those words, the Black Widow sealed her fate.

***

Fury wasn’t happy, but it was Coulson who took it personally that Clint hadn’t completed her mission down to the letter of the law. He took it even worse when her only cryptic explanation was, “She knew.” 

Their strained relationship wasn’t helped by the fact that Clint was spending almost all of her time consumed with the woman. If Clint wasn’t working out, she was staring through the med bay windows at one of the maximum security rooms. There wasn’t much to look at but Clint felt better when she could follow the woman’s daily progress.

Most of what she was going through was reconditioning. It had been decided that they might as well use what had been dropped in their lap, but that was proving to be the hardest option. Whoever had done the initial job was a master of the craft of reformating the brain. There were layers upon layers of formed memories of women who had never actually existed. This woman, who went by Natasha, could have gone by a hundred other names that would have seemed as familiar and comfortable as the one she finally chose.

Before going to see her, Clint had practiced the name so that it didn’t trip over her tongue. She found herself wanting to impress this woman who could see things that others couldn’t. When she was finally allowed into the room, a cadre of doctors and Coulson watching from various windows and monitors, she found herself standing just inside the doorway, unsure what to do next.

“Hello.” Natasha sounded as if she had invited Clint to tea and was welcoming her guest into her home. Even strapped down to the gurney, she sounded much more relaxed than Clint felt. It was all a front, she reminded herself, but it was still hard to keep from fleeing the scene.

“My name is Clint.” Now was not the time or the place to let go of secrets, what with everyone watching for any sign of weakness from either of them. Still, it felt good to give up that much. “And your name is Natasha.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of that.” There was no inflection in her voice that indicated what it was that she knew. Clint had to wonder if she hadn’t somehow found out the name of her captor or, possibly, if she’d already known.

“And to answer your question, it is the first that everyone assumes.” When Natasha didn’t answer for several long breaths, Clint added, “I thought you might want to know.”

Once again, there was no inflection as Natasha asked, “Why would I want to know?”

Clint had only a split second of indecision before she said evenly, “Because if you and I are going to be friends, you should know that you are the only person to ever ask me that question.”

In the strained silence that followed, Clint decided it would be easier to run away than to stay and fight this particular dragon she had freed.

***

It was a few days before Clint dared approach the window again. She noticed that Natasha would glance up from time to time, as if she could see through the shaded glass to the people behind. It was doubtful the doctors had told her about Clint’s vigil, seeing as it didn’t help her recovery any. That left the two other people that visited her outside of the medical staff, either Fury or Coulson.

This insight left Clint with a quandary that she had not been expecting. She had been actively seeking to stay away from both men since arriving back from her last mission. From both, she expected nothing but overwhelming condemnation for what she assumed they saw as breakdown in her training. Up until now, she had succeeded in keeping her emotions out of her job. Up until now, she had been what they expected of her.

A crack had formed down the walls she had formed as eight-year old Barney had whispered his plan all those years ago. It had become second nature to hide behind the mask of maleness. Looking at herself critically in the mirror, she realized that there were many indicators that she might prefer to be thought of as male, even if someone were to have seen the female form that she didn’t necessarily hide. But even that female form wasn’t built for femininity. Not the kind that she’d had as a role model as she was growing up. No sequined and spangled bustier was going to give her curves.

If she didn’t want to dress up in frills and lace to prance around headquarters, did that mean she didn’t want to be a woman? Was she hiding from the issue because she was questioning her sexuality? Did she want to be what everyone assumed she was?

The answer, when she finally got right down to it, was no. The fact of the matter was that she liked who she was. She liked being a woman named Clint. It was still weird to think of herself as a woman, but it didn’t feel wrong. All those years of actively hiding behind the mask made her uncomfortable bringing up the topic, even to herself, but it didn’t feel like something she didn’t like.

After all this soul searching, Clint realized she needed to talk to someone about everything she had discovered. Two someones, in fact. Fury deserved to know that she’d been hiding something from him all along. Coulson needed to know that she’d never meant to not trust him as fully as she could. Just thinking about both conversations made her hands shake in a way they never had in the middle of the fiercest battle.

After her declaration (the only thing she could think to say was, “I’m a girl” which seemed rather paltry as explanations went), Fury blinked several times before answering, “Will I need to change anything on your paperwork?”

“There was nothing on anything I filled out that outright asked.”

His eyes narrowed as he started to piece everything together. “So the first person you ran into assumed you were a boy and you didn’t bother to correct anyone on down the line? What sort of agents am I employing?”

“It’s not a hard assumption to make.” She shrugged, trying to figure out what the right amount of information he needed before it became an over-share on her part. “I spent years like this as a means of protection.”

“And have we killed those people who forced you into the deception yet?”

Her broad smile was a bit toothy as she answered, “Not yet, sir, but I’m working on it.”

It was harder to find Coulson. If she was intent on staying out of his way, he was going to help her with the task. Something had definitely been broken in their relationship that had nothing to do with gender stereotypes and everything to do with trust. Nor would she be able to get away with blurting out a few words by way of explanation. He was, after all, that first person she’d met when first coming to the organization that had assumed she was a boy.

Before she had a chance to talk to Coulson, she found herself back at Natasha’s doorway. This time, when she entered it, there was no one there. As she looked around the room, it was hard to see that anyone had ever been strapped to the bed. In that moment, she understood what it was to be alone. Again.

Instead of pushing herself into yet another existential crisis so soon after the last one, Clint decided to go to the shooting range instead. Natasha’s strange pull on her would be available for introspection later.

As luck would have it, Coulson found her just as she was refilling her quiver. The first round had made it in the inner ring but none embedded into the center. It wasn’t good enough. Not by a long shot. If it took all night, she would stay until her emotions were under control again and these damned arrows flew straight.

“Fury told me you wanted to see me.”

“Something like that,” she grumbled, looking up at him from the corner of her eye as she kept her head down. “But I want to know one thing, first. Where was Natasha taken?”

He folded his arms across his chest. It was something she’d seen him do a thousand times but this time she felt intimidated by a gesture. This, she supposed with irritation, was what other people felt when he directed the force of his quiet personality at them.

“A question for a question. Why’d you bring her instead of completing the job as you’d been instructed?”

If truths were called for, she had a handful for him. Very slowly, Clint stood up straight and tall, facing him with her chin only slightly jutting out, a move he’d taught her when he’d given a few lessons in how to control the person on the other side of her bow. “She was the first person who saw me as I am. The first person who really saw me. Now, I’ll ask again, where is she?”

Coulson’s posture changed at the moment he understood what she meant. It took several seconds and she had to wait for several more while he processed the implications of what she was saying... and what she wasn’t.

“I failed you.” His words were soft but they found their mark as if they’d been edged with razors. Her chin went up slightly more as she tried not to copy his posture to protect her heaving stomach. It had never once dawned on her how important keeping this secret had been to everyone around her.

The question now was simple. Who felt more betrayed? Coulson, because she hadn’t trusted him? Or Clint, because he hadn’t seen what had been so apparent to the stranger?

All she knew was that she didn’t want to be alone. Coulson was the closest thing to family she had at the moment and she found she didn’t want to injure that bound more than she already had today. Instead, she held out her hand.

“You accepted me for who I was on the inside. You made me want to cultivate more of the good things and less of the bad. Without you, I would have given into my brother’s urgings and would, most likely, be dead now instead of doing something worthwhile.”

Coulson nodded, taking her hand but not to shake it. He held it, trapped between both of his own, as he struggled to find words. When they finally came out, his voice was hoarse with emotion. “And you’ve done a damned fine job, too.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome... Clint.” When he dropped her hand, he sighed. “The powers-that-be have decided she is better to us broken than she is to us whole.”

“But Fury said-” Clint was almost incoherent with shock as she processed the words. Had she been betrayed?

“He just found out, himself. He can’t help you and neither can I. Not without compromising everything along the way.” Coulson leaned forward on the balls of his feet, his eyebrows raised in a gesture that meant _hear what I mean and not what I say_. “These orders were sent out fast and precise and found their mark with little repercussion. The powers-that-be don’t want her found.”

Clint grabbed up the full quiver and slung the bow on her back. This was all she was going to need to pull off this heist, especially since she knew exactly where Natasha had been taken.

“Understood. I’ll bring her back. This time, she won’t need a padded cell.”

***

One. 

Two.

Three and then, almost too quickly to count, four.

Five.

Six.

Six people lay about the room, tranq darts poking from various positions on their body, and only one person remained awake.

“I could really use some coffee.” Natasha’s voice was harsh when Clint finally ripped the tape off her mouth.

Clint helped her to her feet. “Just as soon as I make a phone call. They’ll need to know where to find their operatives.”

Her laugh was a hoarse burst of sound that sounded like it hurt. Not just her injured throat but from a place deeper, as if this experience had bruised a heart that she’d forgotten was there. “They aren’t dead?”

“If it had anyone else that had treated you like that, they would have been. This will send a different message.”

“What message is that?”

Clint could feel her lips flatten into a scowl as she looked down at her phone, aware that she was giving up another truth without knowing what the reception would be for it. “I will always find you.”

***

The coffee from the dingy, hole-in-the-wall bakery was surprisingly hot and the smell of the cooking dough was enough to make Clint’s mouth water. As she ordered one of almost everything in the glass case, Clint didn’t dare look over at Natasha but she knew what she’d see. There would be a smile on Natasha’s lips, but only a small one, as if she was not really surprised by what was going on and more than a little amused.

After stirring in three sugars and adding a good dollop of milk, Clint followed Natasha out of the front door and down the street to the waterfront. After settling down on the sea wall, Clint grabbed at the first pastry before handing the bag over.

“I hate eating alone,” she commented when Natasha hesitated. “And I doubt anyone had time to poison the doughnuts.”

They ate in silence, watching the white-capped waves run for the beach down below. Birds cavorted through the air, calling to each other as they wheeled about. Being in the open like this wasn’t comfortable for Clint but she liked the feeling of peace she had right now. For a moment, they could exist without having to look over their shoulder at who was coming for them. It would only last a moment, though.

Clint closed her eyes and took a deep breath of salted air and crisp, sugared dough. When she opened them again, Natasha was holding a knife against her throat. The steel bit against the skin far enough that Clint knew there would be a spot of blood welling up. Still, she kept silent as she waited to see if Natasha wanted to tell her something before she killed her.

“Why?” she asked, her eyes colder than they’d ever been while she was strapped to the bed. “Why are you suddenly my champion? I could have gotten myself free from those men. I could have been gone from here and back to my old life. It was what they really wanted.”

“But it wasn’t what I wanted.”

Her burnished hair slapped against her cheek as Natasha swung her head back and forth in a negative gesture. “No. I won’t believe it. You know nothing about me. This is a trick.”

“This is breakfast. The only tricks I can do are with my bow.”

“You lie.” There was no real heat in these words, only a sense of confusion as Natasha battled within herself. “You made me hope. That is a great trick.”

“No trick,” she asserted once again, the fear she was already feeling starting to intensify as she imagined, more than felt, the nerves in her neck being savaged by the knife. The blood that was dripping down her neck felt cold and she wanted to shiver but knew she shouldn’t. Not if she wanted to live for a bit longer. “If you want to get yourself out of harm’s way, I’ll be happy to take you back to the safe house and strap you in again. They should be awake in another half hour. That should give you plenty of time to figure out how to undo the bonds.”

“Why?” Natasha hissed again.

“It should be your choice. Whether you stay or go.” It was hard to order her thoughts as so many different reasons lined up, but she finally found what she wanted to say. “They shouldn’t have to break you down. What kind of weapon would you be then? The best weapons are those that are forged with fire, true, but you’ve been through fire. No need to burn you at the stake just to say that we were the ones who accomplished it, as well.”

Natasha laughed, another low, hurtful sound. “I would never have let that happen. I don’t know why I allowed it to get even as far as it did.”

“I do.” Clint wrapped a hand around Natasha’s wrist, drawing the knife away from her skin just enough that she felt like she could breath again. “I gave you a truth.”

“You gave me nothing,” the angry woman hissed. “That your organization was so blind that they couldn’t see you for who you really are is an insult to their strength. What else is happening under their noses that they can not see because they are so wrapped in their own selflessness?”

As much as the words were supposed to sting, Clint felt no hurt in the words. She could see the struggle that Natasha was having as her training struggled for dominance. If she’d been in control, Clint doubted she would have felt this much anger coming off the woman. “I gave you a truth,” she stated again, as if it might have been missed before. “And I’ll give you another. You are free, Natasha. Well and truly free. That is my gift to you.”

“What must I pay for this one?”

Clint dropped her hand from Natasha’s wrist and held both of them out in front of her, palms up. It was the most vulnerable she’d ever let herself be. Whatever the girl decided to do, Clint wouldn’t be able to get to any of the weapons she carried on different parts of her person before the knife bit back into her neck.

But instead of slashing her open, Natasha dropped the knife. “Too much red,” she moaned, curling in on herself. “I’ve got too much red in my ledger. I already owe you too much.”

“Breakfast is free. The other... well, you can work that off.” Her words were soft and her tone light, but each breath she took felt inadequate to fill her chest as she struggled up out of the pit of fear where she suddenly found herself.

“This isn’t a game,” Natasha suddenly raged, “and I am not a pawn you can play with at your whim.”

Both her palms flexed closed before she could convince them open again. “I’ve been nothing but honest with you. And you owe me _nothing_ for your freedom because it was always your right to be free. So... I’m setting you free. I thought... well, I don’t know what I thought.”

Natasha’s breath caught. “That was a lie. You told me a lie.”

“That wasn’t a lie. Merely an omission. I _don’t_ know what I thought because I wasn’t thinking. I was doing. I was reacting.” She ducked her head, turning to look at Natasha out of the corner of her eyes. “But this isn’t a lie. Are you ready to hear it? You helped me figure out a few things about myself. Now I’m doing the same thing. We’re even. Do you hear me? Even. Go figure out who you really are, Natasha.”

She closed her eyes, counting down from fifteen. When she opened her eyes again, Natasha was gone. So was, she was sad to see, the bag of pastries.

***

It was another week before she was tagged for assignment. Everything went according to the plan this time, including the kill shot that Clint thought nothing of taking. But her arrow never left the bow. Between the time it took her to breath in and then breath out, a knife embedded in the man’s eye socket. He was dead before he ever hit the floor.

When the body was taken to be processed, Clint claimed the knife. There was nothing special about it. Nothing that stood out as an indication of who threw it but she hadn’t expected anything. It was the lack of evidence that clued her in to who it had previously belonged to. She stuck it in the top of her boot.

Almost as soon as she was sent into the field for her next assignment, the body of the woman she’d been sent after turned up on the steps of a nearby safe house. A stylized arrow was drawn on her cheek in dark red lipstick even though she’d been killed with a strange poison that no one at SHIELD had ever heard of.

After a third strange circumstance connected with one of Clint’s missions, this one a triad of drug smugglers all hung by their left arms, Fury refused to let her out into the field until they could figure who was behind all the strangeness. There was no way she could change his mind so she spent the next two weeks at the shooting range, intent on improving her already impeccable skills.

The battle at Budapest wasn’t supposed to happen. Clint was there to help Coulson finalize some plans for an upcoming summit between two warring factions. It was a peaceful gathering... and then it wasn’t. Things turned ugly and Clint found herself trapped in a blind alley, armed only with a half-filled quiver and the lone knife that she had kept in her boot. Things seemed bleak as she struggled to find a way out of a situation that was tangled and confusing from her vantage point.

A bundle of arrows fell from above, landing within easy reach, as if they had been deliberately sent down. She didn’t look up, only grabbed for the gifts and began firing off shots. Soon enough, the pattern of the battle righted itself and she was able to see how she could end this. Or, at the very least, get out of this alley alive.

The fighting was still raging when Clint got out to the street. Here and there, she saw other SHIELD agents, but it was the spot of red that captured her attention and that was where she headed. As she carved a path through the strangle-masked bad guys, all she could think was that it felt incredibly right to fight side by side with Natasha.

“Thanks,” she yelled over the roar of the fight, “for the ammo.”

Natasha’s smile was tight as she concentrated on making each shot count but she edged over to make room for Clint in her circle. Together, they fought back to back until there was no one else that needed to be shot.

“I think I’m going to remember this day forever,” Clint muttered as they finally got back to the quinjet. She stretched out her lower back after stowing her equipment and turning back to Natasha who had trailed after the group. “D’you need a ride somewhere?”

This time, Natasha’s smile was a little bit brighter but only until Coulson turned toward the two of them. “Coming, Romanova?”

“Romanoff. Natasha Romanoff,” Natasha said with practiced ease over the variation of her name.

Clint grinned at Coulson. “The lady wants to be called Romanoff. Think we can change her nametag?”

“Already done.”

Natasha had to duck her head to keep anyone from seeing her smile but Clint saw it and her smile was wide in return. “Let’s go home, Coulson. Can I drive?”

“Nope.”

“It was worth a shot.”


End file.
